


My Kingdom for a Sock

by chailover



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailover/pseuds/chailover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Notes: This gave me sock feels. I didn't know it was possible to get sock feels.</p><p>Originally prompted <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/13316.html?thread=30349060#t30349060">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	My Kingdom for a Sock

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This gave me sock feels. I didn't know it was possible to get sock feels.
> 
> Originally prompted [here](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/13316.html?thread=30349060#t30349060).

_New Year’s_

“Mr. Stark, the gala is in half an hour,” his new assistant said, sounding much calmer than he would’ve expected at this point, since the party was at least half an hour’s drive away and he was still elbow deep in engine guts. “This had been on your schedule for three months.”

“Well, if you told me three months ago, you can hardly expect me to still remember it now, could you? Dummy, no, I can’t see - what are you doing?” he said as the wrench was lifted out of his hands.

“I really must insist that you get ready, Mr. Stark,” she said. “You’ll find your clothes are laid out on the bed, please take a shower. I will ask Mr. Hogan to come around in twenty minutes.”

“I can’t go,” he said reasonably, because he had his excuses made up beforehand. He had been making them more and more outrageous, intrigued by this notion of the unflappable Personal Assistant (not to be confused by the notion of the Unflappable British Butler...he was used to those). Last month he couldn’t go to the board meeting because his shoelaces weren’t pink. Last week he couldn’t go to the factory inspection because his handkerchief didn’t match his tie (a rainbow plaid monstrosity that he had bought just to see what expressions it would elicit from his board members). The indomitable Miss Potts had merely smiled serenely and produced the items he wanted. Tony was hard pressed to deny that he was fascinated.

“Pray tell, why?” She said crisply as she shooed him from the workshop and up the stairs. He pulled a face and tried to rub off some of the oil on his arms onto his t-shirt.

“I have no socks.” He declared. And he really, really didn’t. There had been something that required a variety of small tubes of fabrics and he honestly didn’t have one single sock left in the house that hadn’t been sacrificed on the altar of science, and most of his gloves and hats were victims as well.

“That won’t be a problem, Mr. Stark.” She replied, practically shoving him into the bathroom. “I will take care of it.”

That night was a series of firsts in his life - the first time he rode the limo in a full tux and flip-flops, the first time his black AmEx actually charged something from Walmart, first time he was less than an hour late to an event, and the first time Pepper Potts bought him Hello Kitty socks.

**

_Afghanistan_

Yinsen was just thinner than Tony in general, and most of his spare clothes fit poorly, if they fit at all. Tony’s own clothes barely survived the bomb and served the rest of their useful life as bandages. They cobbled together a few changes of clothes for Tony from what they could - pants, shirts from the rest of the terrorists, a cap and some gloves from Yinsen.

And the first night that he was conscious and well enough to not be able to sleep from the chilly damp of the caves and his own nightmares, Yinsen lent him a pair of misshapen, scratchy wool socks.

**  
 _Christmas (year 1)_

“How did we go from badass superheroes to the Brady’s?” Tony said flatly, raising an eyebrow at the fireplace with its ten or so stockings.

“Midgardian traditions are so fascinating!” Thor boomed, brandishing the stocking with his name on it. “Are we allowed to peruse the contents of these excessively large socks?”

Steve was smiling, unhooking his own, “Go ahead, Thor. There’s something for everyone.”

Everyone was gathered in front of the fire place, and even though the communal living room in Stark Tower (one of the ones...on this floor, anyway) was massive, the Avengers and honorary Avengers were all crowded together on the large sectional and loveseats. It was almost sickeningly domestic, Tony thought as Natasha passed him his stocking.

Clint, as much as he pretended he was the super spy to end all super spies (only surpassed by Natasha), gave up on rooting through the bag for loot like an adult and just dumped it all out on the carpet. Tony took one look, shrugged to himself, and did the same. Hey, in a case of maturity vs efficiency, efficiency should always win.

“Ooh, what are these?” Clint cooed, picking up a few loose cylinder shaped things. He also grinned widely at the candy (probably Pepper or Coulson) and exclaimed over the sketch (Steve), but Tony preened a little as Clint focused on his present first. “Are these arrowheads?”

“Yup,” Tony nodded. “Remember that slime last week, and what we said might’ve helped with neutralizing them? The green ones are superglue tips - they’re liquid to start, but whatever gets caught or covered in it will be stuck fast, the compound solidifies in two seconds or so. The blue ones are freeze arrow tips, and the red ones cancel the glue arrows. I can have JARVIS send you a guide later.”

Clint pursed his lips and whistled as Natasha fiddled with a spare freeze arrow tip with interest. “That is awesome.”

“Thanks. And I see I have no coal.” Tony pawed through his pile. “Chocolate, chocolate, candy, ooh, mini acetylene torch!” Bruce quirked a smile at him, “Allen wrenches,” because there can never be enough sets of Allen wrenches, and he held up the last item triumphantly, “Aw, Pepper!”

“Now your socks will match your tie, Mr. Stark.” She said primly as he swiftly removed the packaging on his new pair of rainbow Argyle socks and put them on. He wiggled his toes at her as the rest of the team laughed good-naturedly at him.

“I am so going to wear these to the board meeting next week,” Tony decided.

**

_Japan_

Natasha and Clint return from a mission in the dead of night, and the following morning Tony found three pairs of socks left on his kitchen counter, by the coffee machine. He crowed delightedly - he now had a pair of rainbow striped socks to go with the Argyle ones, a pair that was covered in something that looked like a yellow chickens that looked vaguely familiar, and a pink pair with sequins.

“Those are chocobo.” Clint told him later, slurping his bowl of cereal as Tony padded in with the socks in question, because the tile got cold in the mornings. “From Final Fantasy. Gotta love Japan, they have the most awesome merchandise.”

“Hear, hear.” Tony agreed.

**

_China_

Rhodey throws a pair of socks at his face after he sheds the War Machine armor and it’s bright, blood red with white and pink peonies and vibrant, viridian green leaves, done in the classic painting style. Apparently he found it at one of the Beijing night markets and “The eye-ball stabbing colors made me think of you.” was his excuse.

“You do love me, honeybear!” Tony replied and made plans to wear those the next time he and Rhodey ended up on camera together in an important diplomatic meeting or something.

**

_Children’s Hospital, Manhattan_

“Captain America is my favorite,” the pale, wan child confided to him in quiet voice, her eyes dark and liquid in her face. Tony squeezed her hand gently and nodded.

“Why is he your favorite?” he asked, not a trace of mockery in his tone. Listening from the door, Steve could hardly believe this was the same man who told him that he was no better than a science experiment to his face.

“Because he’s brave,” she replied, “and he fights evil. And...” she trailed off, a little shyly, “And he came back. Everyone thought he died, but he came back.”

“You’re right,” Tony nodded. “You want to know a secret?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s my favorite, too.” Tony bent and the girl leaned a bit forward to look, and Steve blushed when he realized Tony was showing her his Captain America socks.

Later, after Tony came out but before it’s his turn to go in, he nudged Tony with his shoulder. “Captain America socks?” he mouthed. Tony blinked and then looked down.

“Gotta be appropriately dressed for the occasion,” he snarked back. “Now then, Cap. Your fan awaits.”

**

_Natasha_

Like Rhodey, Natasha threw the socks at his head.

Unlike Rhodey, the socks were a tasteful granite gray that went with pretty much any pair of pants or shoes. The yarn was amazingly soft and as Tony ran his hands against the weave, he found strange irregularities, a few barely noticeable bumps in the fabric that turned out to be tiny, long ‘pockets’ along the inseam.

“For lockpicks.” She said shortly when he wiggled a finger in the pocket at her. “And not one word out of you, Stark.”  
He held up his hands in mock surrender, but got his chance a few weeks later, after the n-th Tony Stark kidnapping attempt. When the team picked him up at a Starbucks three blocks from where he was being held, sipping at an espresso while lounging in one of the armchairs, Natasha wordlessly handed over his suitcase armor. He nodded at her and mouthed, “thanks.”

**  
 _Christmas (year??)_

“Meta-socks!” Tony declared.

Bruce groaned. “That was horrible.”

“But! It IS socks on socks.”

“That’s still horrible, Tony.” Natasha interjected, going through her own stocking and pulling out a tiny tin. She raised an eyebrow at Tony over the special Russian tea and he shrugged.

“The world would be no fun without any puns,” he protested, sorting through his pile.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Children...”

“But mom, Bruce is being mean to me!” Tony whined in a scarily accurate rendition of a ten year old. Steve jerked his chin and Clint obediently smacked Tony up-side the head. “Ow!”

“Don’t make me turn this car around.” Steve deadpanned to a chorus of laughter. “...hey, are these...?” He held up the package. Everyone else rustled in their pile and/or stockings and produced the same things.

They turned out to be black socks with a discreet stylized ‘A’ embroidered into the side. It was made of a strange material that felt like cotton but breathed only in one direction. Or so Tony explained, and demonstrated.

“...socks that breathe but don’t get wet.” Clint summarized, awed. “Do you know what this means, Stark?”

Steve remembered many wet, cold, miserable moments in the front lines, on ops, both before and after the ice, times when he would kill for a pair of warm, dry socks. And now he had one engineered to do exactly that, while still feeling like a regular pair of socks.

“I call these S-4,” Tony bragged. “Super Socks for Super Soldiers. Or in birdbrain and Nat’s case, Super Socks for Super Spies. Thor and Bruce and everyone else gets them too, of course, but the name’s catchy.”

Pepper looked pleased and horrified at the same time while everyone either groaned at the horrible name, thanked Tony effusively, or both. Steve grinned at her and she finally laughed. “The socks are spreading.” She whispered.

Steve looked as Tony put on his present from Steve - Natasha was teaching him to knit and as a sort of gag gift, he made socks that looked like Iron Man’s jet boots.

“They’ll take over the world,” he agreed.

**

End


End file.
